


Darling Buds

by Brillador



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Humor, Clones, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Humor, Magical Shenanigans, Pocket Belle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 06:50:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6970768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brillador/pseuds/Brillador
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rumple uses a replication spell to teach Belle a lesson. It has unexpected consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darling Buds

The sound of silver hitting the stone floor reverberated up from the kitchen to the great hall. Rumplestiltskin stilled the spinning wheel. Had it been the first time this noise occurred in the Dark Castle, he might have been alarmed. He might have hopped to his feet, magicked down and poked his head in the kitchen to make sure his caretaker had not met an ill-timed fate. He might have been hasty to check that she was all right. And give her a sound lecture, of course. Not so now. He merely sighed and waited for Belle to appear. Sure enough, ten minutes later, she arrived carrying a silver tray with his afternoon tea, trotting in as though nothing had happened. One thing did raise his suspicions: she usually looked at him when she entered a room he was in. She liked to give a friendly greeting in hopes of sparking conversation. Her gaze was instead fastened to the tray. She said nothing. Her hands slowly lowered the tray onto the table. She poured the tea with extra care.

“Everything all right, my maid?” Rumplestiltskin playfully asked.

A soft gasp left her. “Oh, yes!” Her movements quickened as she brought him his cup. “Sorry, I was a little distracted.”

“I should wonder.” The imp’s pitch climbed. A wry grin stretched out. “If I dropped my master’s silverware, I’d be distracted worrying if he’ll find out, too.”

Ah, there was that lovely blush he enjoyed bringing out. It caught fire across Belle’s apple cheeks. Her blue eyes darted down, side to side, then back to him. “You, uh, you heard that?”

“My dead grandmother heard it.”

Her eyes slammed shut, which briefly concerned Rumple, since his teacup was in her hands while she walked. She delivered the already chipped china without incident. He accepted it, pouring all attention into keeping his hands steady and not brushing her skin. As though rebelling against such restraint, his fingertips experienced a phantom tickle much like what happened whenever their hands did happen to touch. “Look, I’m sorry,” Belle said. “Really. It won’t happen again.”

“It better not. That silver didn’t come cheap.”

Her eyebrows rose as she scoffed. She actually dared to scoff at the Dark One. “You probably conjured it out of thin air!”

The imp wagged a finger. “All magic comes with a price, remember?”

“Yes,” Belle answered wearily. “You keep reminding me. And everyone else I don’t know how many times.”

“Yet everyone keeps forgetting and blaming their woes on me.”

Again, his caretaker scrounged up some audacity with her oblique stare. He answered with a frown of indignant innocence. “What?”

Belle, with a smile that drew his notice to her rosy lips, shook her head. “Don’t sell yourself short, Rumple.”

Leather squeaked and wood groaned. Rumplestiltskin narrowed the space between him and the beauty whose saucy attitude should not have sent his heart bucking like an excited colt. A glimmer of surprise, maybe even fear, touched her face as he circled her. She tried to turn with him. He moved a second quicker. Dexterous fingers, attuned to the delicacy of potion-making and gold-spinning, snagged a few strands of shining auburn hair.

“Agh! What was that?” The sting in her scalp didn’t quite earn an ‘ouch’. Rumple considered that a success.

“A reminder not to be so cheeky, dearie.” He clenched the strands against his palm while pointing at her. Master and servant faced each other again. One wore a scolding look; the other acted more annoyed than intimidated.

“I’m being cheeky,” Belle said, “so you yank out my hair? I know five-year-old boys who have done worse.”

He leaned in. Her scent, a fusion of book-musk and spring air, nearly derailed him from his temper. “Lucky for you, then, that I’m not a five-year-old. Now, off to your duties!”  
She rolled those vibrant blue eyes. Rumplestiltskin watched her walk out, admiring the curve of her neck from the way she held her chin. His sadistic side hoped her prideful pose caused her to hit an uneven floorboard and trip. His less-sadistic half was ready to catch her if it happened. No such luck. Her feet skipped down the steps, a sign she felt sure-footed and not very perturbed about her master neglecting to punish her for the dropped silver.

Damaged possessions were not Rumplestiltskin’s greatest worry. The chipped cup he now sipped from while alone on his spinning stool said as much. He was more worried that any fear she felt for him in that first week of her arrival had dwindled to practically nothing. And he worried about how glad that made him.  
He could not scare her as he did in the beginning, not when he could remember with warmth in his stomach how her bare arms and soft body felt wrapped around him in that surprise hug, or how sweetly she gripped his hand when he warned her about not letting any dust find a home in her new library. A nervous flutter at both memories went through him. For assurance, he rolled the strands of hair between his fingers. 

Delicate and beautiful, like her. In fact, they held her very essence. If only she had known that when he stole them from her lovely head.

Rumplestiltskin smiled like the trickster he played for nearly everyone in the realm. He took a slow sip from the chipped cup.

***  
The next morning, Belle was up shortly after dawn, as she had trained herself to since coming to the Dark Castle. After a quick breakfast of toast and cheese, she went to retrieve of her favorite feather duster. It was supposed to be in the ground floor closet near the great hall, along with a dozen others her master had supplied out of, dare she think it, consideration. Or to make sure she had no excuse not to do her job. For some reason, like a premonition, her stomach dropped as she opened the door. There was no feather duster. There weren’t any feather dusters. 

This was not an unprecedented occurrence, but she had hoped her relationship with the Dark One would move beyond this.

She marched down the corridor. The dealmaker would be in the great hall at this time, spinning gold he didn’t need. “Rumplestiltskin! I’m not going to play this game. I have a very long list of chores to get through.” As if he didn’t know that—he’d assigned them to her. “Give me back my dusters, or so help—”

She pushed open the double doors to the hall. Words left her. There was Rumple at his wheel, but he wasn’t wearing that focused, melancholy grimace she had come to associate with the task. He pretended to look only at his wheel and the gold rolling off the bobbin. His eyes intermittently glanced at the spectacle unfolding around him: tiny bodies moving around the room with her feather dusters. A smile of scheming satisfaction kept surfacing on his scaly face.

How was this scenario happening? How was she seeing it? Belle tiptoed forward in fear of disturbing the little creatures that were scampering across the floor and table and sweeping up dust. Were they wearing dresses? Did they have brown hair?

Closer proximity confirmed what she hoped she had just imagined by mistake. They did have dresses and brown hair. The six-inch-tall creatures were her. Belles! Little Belles, all wearing the same blue dress and white blouse Rumple had given her a short time ago as an alternative to her noblewoman’s weighty gold gown. They interacted among themselves and pointed to where there were patches of dust to clear away. One Belle standing on the table had a large cleaning rag. She and another Belle worked together to tip a bottle of polish onto it. They were undisturbed by the fact that they were cleaning furniture hundreds of times their sizes, or that their cohorts looked exactly like them! There had to be at least twenty little Belles, all cleaning away at the alleged behest of the Dark One.

“Wha—what is this?” Despite her shock, Belle had a mind to keep her voice leveled.

Her exclamation, while tempered, gained the attention of a couple miniature Belles crossing under the table, their arms filled with thimbles of water from a nearby bucket. Someone had constructed a ladder of toothpicks to make ascending the (to them) large bucket possible. Half a dozen Belles were likewise scaling the curtains to wash the windows with tiny rags and tiny shards of soap. Everyone was engrossed with their work—except the two Belles delivering water to the window-washers. They stopped. They stared up at the normal-sized woman, smiled and waved. 

“Morning, Belle!” they said together.

Belle blinked at them. The tiny Belles giggled and hurried on. Another giggle not at all like hers—it was higher—followed. She straightened to glare at Rumplestiltskin. “Do you mind explaining?” She motioned to everything before her.

His narrow shoulders and splayed hands shrugged together. “After yesterday’s little mishap, I thought you could use more pairs of hands.”

“Well, that’s . . . kind. But how do hands the size of mouse paws help with carrying heavy silver trays?”

The imp pressed his lips together so they resembled a duck’s bill. “. . . I may not have thought that through. But, that doesn’t mean they aren’t doing their level best to help. Just look at them.”

On cue, several mini-Belles paused to give affirming cheers. “We want to help!” many of them cried. Belle watched them, unable to help the swell of affection and gratitude filling her heart. A smile flowered.

“Aren’t they precious?” Rumplestiltskin asked right in her ear.

She jumped a good five inches. While her heart kept pounding, she whirled on Rumple with a reprimanding frown. “Be that as it may, since they’re here, I will put them to good use. Can I trust you will let me do my chores without more . . . magical intervention?”

“Of course!” Rumple’s finger bopped her on the nose. “After all, I brought you here to keep my castle clean.”

Part of her wanted to tell him that bopping ladies on the nose wasn’t polite—not unless it was done between friends or lovers. But the thought made her wonder if Rumple had in fact brought her here for more than overseeing the upkeep of his estate. On impulse, she caught his hand as he started to pull it back. Like in the library not long ago, his confident smirk fell, leaving his surprise unguarded. Belle looked him in the eyes—those strange eyes, more reptilian than human, yet capable of unexpected softness when the mood took him. She had grown quite fond of those green and silver irises.

Neither spoke. Heat fizzled between them. Sometimes they shared brief intimate instances like this that left Belle speechless, and a little flushed. Now, however, she felt the scales tip in her favor. Her face invaded his personal space a couple inches. The great terrible Dark One looked like a petrified deer. He didn’t move. He didn’t even appear to be breathing. It was rather adorable. Belle knew better than to ever say so, of course.

She raised an eyebrow. “Then I better get to work.”

Rumplestiltskin blinked, breaking the momentary spell. He loudly cleared his throat. “Right. Yes. Get to it, then.” He freed his hand and disappeared in a purple cloud of magic.

Belle glimpsed around her again. All the tiny Belles had stopped working to watch the exchange. They too had been entranced, though she couldn’t think why. That is, until they glanced among themselves and broke into a string of laughter.

Hands on her hips, she assumed her best authoritative voice. “What are you all giggling at? We have far too much work to do. Hurry along!”

Still laughing and smiling, the little Belles returned to cleaning the great hall. Although they remained mirthful, they proved themselves diligent workers. They also seemed to possess the original Belle’s bouts of clumsiness, leading to spilled buckets, dropped knives and forks while polishing the silverware, and some falls that thankfully weren’t severe. This was partly because Belle was around to make a few saving catches.

By the time evening came round and all the cleaning, laundering and food preparations for the day were finished, every Belle, big and small, was tuckered out. But Big Belle, as the little Belles called her, still had to serve dinner. She didn’t blame the small dears for their exhaustion. They had carried objects much bigger than what she normally handled day to day. 

Before Rumple was expected to appear for his meal, she served broth in a teacup and handed out clean thimbles for the girls. She gave them the tiniest spoon she could find with which to ladle the soup. Since the broth had no chunks of food, the little Belles could drink it without utensils. Belle also found a book in the library that made for an ideal table and used a napkin as a table cloth. To save them time and energy, she told the girls to climb up on her arms and shoulders, and she carried them slowly from the kitchen to the dining hall. The girls all thanked her; a few even kissed her cheek or hands before dropping down to the table. Once the book and napkin were set and the girls helped themselves to their portions, they all sat down. Their soft chiming voices murmured mostly below Belle’s hearing. She reached to pull back her own chair to take a seat, ever curious what her small selves liked to talk about.

“They’ve taken quite a shine to you.” Rumplestiltskin was suddenly at the fireplace behind her.

Belle looked round. Maybe the drop in her stomach was a warning of her master’s waggish antics coming to wreak havoc. It had dulled her shock at his abrupt entrance. She faced him with a small smile. “Are you very surprised?”

“Not at all.” He sauntered over to better observe the tiny caretakers drinking their soup and chatting quietly. Belle noticed his lips pursed with a restrained grin. “So cute. They’re like brunette Smurfs.”

“Like what?” Belle asked.

Rumple flicked his hand. “Never mind. Did they give you much trouble?”

She let her own grin shine through. “Not as much as I’m sure you wanted them to. But I will say that it seems no matter what size I am, I have my moments of gracelessness.”

Rumple smiled in a way that told her he was trying not to laugh.

“Is this how our lives will be from now on?” Belle asked. She regarded the girls again. They were her, except they behaved more childlike. They hadn’t questioned her orders or their purpose in the castle. When Belle took a rest to read, they wanted her to read aloud to them. She didn’t mind in the least.

“Oh.” Rumple’s voice faltered. It moved closer. “I’m afraid the magic lasts only one day.”

Alarmed, Belle faced him. “What do you mean?”

His eyes met hers. “I mean that they will be gone tomorrow.”

“Just like that?” Belle gawked at him, horrified.

Rumple said nothing. Amid the confusion sketched on his sparkly face, an inkling of guilt peered through. He hadn’t expected this outcome. The mini-Belles were supposed to be a one-off joke. Belle had no idea how exactly he had brought them into being, and she didn’t want to imagine how they would disappear from existence once their time was up. It felt cruel. Even if they were just six-inch copies of her, they were alive and conscious. They had thoughts and feelings, as far as she could tell. And their lives were to be snuffed out in just a day? A day spent as slaves? For what? The worst was that they had no idea. The girls sipped from their thimbles, whispered things she would never know, and smiled as though they had enjoyed their day despite the sweat from their labors.

The tears came quite suddenly. Belle stopped them from falling, but she couldn’t stop Rumple from noticing. He moved toward her, his eyes wide with deepened confusion. “Belle—?”

With a violent headshake, Belle walked as quickly as she could from the hall. She needed to forget. She needed to sleep and convince herself this was just some whimsical dream.  
Every movement to change her clothes and climb into bed while holding in her tears weighed her down until, finally, she was under the warm comfort of the covers, surrounded by the library’s bookshelves. Then she let the water flow. It was silly, a part of her mind reasoned as she wept. The little Belles weren’t unhappy. They had liked helping her, and really, was that so wrong? Everyone dies someday. Even Rumplestiltskin, that imp, must meet his end. She did not know if he was truly immortal or how his immortality worked. Wondering whether Rumple would meet death like everyone else, or if he was sentenced to a lonely, unending existence, made her cry harder.

Sleep must have overwhelmed her. The next thing she remembered was waking to a hand on her shoulder and a chorus of small voices. “Belle?” a bigger but quiet voice said.

Her eyes opened. Rumple was leaning over her, and all the small Belles were sitting on the bed. Several rested against her chest. She was sure a few were lying on her head. Some climbed up the blanket covering her torso and found seats along her hip. Belle held still. 

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Rumple withdrew his hand. His forefinger and thumb rubbed together. “They were worried about you. And . . . they wanted to know if they could stay with you tonight.”

Belle swallowed. Her eyes were too dried out to make more tears. “I see. It’s all right.”

“Can Rumple stay, too?” one of the Belles sitting before her eyes asked. The rest rang in with “Yes!” and “Please!”

She looked up at Rumple, her eyebrows pinched together. “Are you all right with this?”

He looked just as surprised. With an uncertain glance at his caretaker and her little copies, he said, “I am if you are.”

His response convinced her he had not put the girls up to this. In fact, while he remained cautious circling the bed and settling his weight behind Belle, the little Belles chittered happily. She felt many of them scurry over her while Rumple situated himself. Soon happy sighs echoed around them. Every Belle cuddled against her from head to toe like chipmunks. Belle was more surprised when a masculine hand sporting long black nails perched on her waist. It seemed afraid to rest completely. A girlish giggle preceded the feeling of the hand sliding forward to Belle’s stomach. Heat touched her cheeks to see a mini-Belle pushing Rumple’s wrist so that he was fully hugging her middle. Of course, he could have resisted if he was actually against the position. Belle found herself grinning at that fact. The small Belle met her gaze and smiled back, eyes squinting and cheeks dimpled.

Belle rotated her head as far as she could toward her master. “You don’t mind?” she teased.

Rumple swallowed. “Not if you don’t.”

That sealed it. Little Belle was joined by another in keeping Rumple’s arm pinned by lying down on it. They folded the loose silk fabric of his shirt into pillows.  
Melancholy came back. Belle’s heart broke again for these sweet dears. She petted both girls with her fingertip. “Good night, my darlings,” she whispered.

“Good night, Belle,” all the little Belles sleepily answered.

“Good night,” said a soft, scratchy voice next to her ear.

***  
It wasn’t supposed to go this way. The sight of Belle conducting a troupe of miniature-sized replicas of her was supposed to provide Rumplestiltskin entertainment for a day. Somehow it had taken a bleak turn when his caretaker learned of the brevity of this venture. Whether it was affection or a sensitive attitude toward all life, Belle had succumbed to tears. She didn’t even have her own dinner. He went ahead with his own. Unfortunately doing so put him under the scrutiny of the little Belles. They had stared him down with those penetrating eyes, as glaring as the midday sky to an owl. Before long they gathered around him and asked, shyly yet with growing determination, what had happened to Big Belle. First he evaded the questions, then pretended to truly not know, then to presume she had been taken ill.

The girls relented for a minute to discuss something in a close huddle. They returned as one group while Rumple finished off the plate of beef and potatoes Belle had prepared. 

“We want Belle to feel better,” one of them declared.

“Of course you do,” Rumple said with a careless hand-wave. His bowl disappeared. “I hope she does.”

“She will,” another chimed in, “if you go see her.”

Rumplestiltskin frowned. Was that a glimmer of cunning in those innocent eyes? “I highly doubt that.”

“Trust us,” the first Belle said, a smile appearing. “We know. You’ll make her feel better.”

Somehow the ensuing conversation brought him to the library he had given to Belle after their adventure in Sherwood Forest. The redness around her shut lids and the tense way she slept told him her grief. He gently stirred her awake while the tiny Belles jumped onto the bed off his shoulders and arms. Normal Belle awoke and, to his relief, expressed no anger toward him. She welcomed him to stay with her and her small counterparts. The little Belles got an odd idea in their heads when, out of tentative appreciation for the inviting warmth of Belle’s body, he had touched her waist. Suddenly two small Belles were dragging his hand over her stomach and trapping him in an awkward pose. But his Belle—yes, his, according to their deal—spoke as though the situation amused her. They both consented, and before he knew it the Dark One fell into the dangerously soothing haven of his caretaker’s spring-fresh scent, soft curls, comforting body heat and calm breathing. Sleep made him a prisoner there. Never had a prisoner felt so disinclined to escape.

The next morning crept on them like a thief. It stole away the company of the little Belles before Rumplestiltskin awoke. He found only his own Belle hugging him around the chest, her head buried above his collarbone. When he looked down at her, she immediately looked up at him. She was fully alert.  
“They’re gone,” she said. Rumple could see that her eyes wanted to give in to tears again. She had a grip on herself, though. What she said next almost broke his composure. “They didn’t suffer, did they?”

Rumple’s hand, of its own will, stroked her messy hair. Seeing Belle this sad and disheveled, and in his arms no less, made her dangerously beautiful. He forced his attention to stay on her eyes instead of her lips, her bare neck, or the sloping neckline of her nightgown. “No. I don’t think so.” He didn’t know. He never cared about such a question before. For the life of him he couldn’t grasp why he feared disappointing Belle by showing her how monstrous he could be. He had not even bothered about the welfare of the small beings his magic had created, aside from entrusting them to his clumsy but well-meaning maid.

Belle looked down at nothing. A soft frown occupied her mouth. They both became quiet, and stayed that way long enough for Rumple to begin thinking he ought to leave her alone so he could start today’s potions in the tower. She probably didn’t want to talk to him further, or even see him. His body started to inch away.

She squeezed her arms around him. “Wait. Could you stay a little longer?”

Rumple stopped moving. “You want me to?”

“Just a little while.” Her head nestled in the crook of his neck. “I don’t want to be alone yet.”

The deafening sound of his pulse filled Rumplestiltskin’s ears. Belle must have felt it in his neck even through his protective scaly skin. He didn’t try to understand why she found comfort in his company when her sullen mood was his fault, nor did he try to decide what this meant about their future. He didn’t try to make sense of the anxiety and serenity at war in him. Fear occupied his thoughts, yet his body relaxed in Belle’s embrace. Her steady breathing gradually dulled his worries. It was like falling in a trance, an illusionary peace he didn’t want to end. He turned his face toward hers so his mouth pressed against her scalp. Belle inhaled quickly, then sunk even more into him, her nose nuzzling his neck. Rumple shivered from the tickle.

They held it each like that as they drifted back to sleep. Neither of them kept track of the time. They both knew it was too fleeting.

**Author's Note:**

> Note: This fic was written as a giveaway prize for belletheoutsider on Tumblr. The idea blatantly borrows from delintthedarkone, who very kindly let me spin off on her original concept. Thanks again!


End file.
